The Arab Spring and a Japanese catastrophe made for global headlines. Normally, the networks rev up foreign coverage only when the US is embroiled abroad. Yet, sans such crises, the international newshole was larger than in any year since 1991.

NBC led with the Fukushima tsunami and the ouster of Hosni Mubarak; CBS focused on the fighting on Libya and the crackdown in Syria. By contrast, ABC belied its World News title by cutting back abroad—apart from Prince William's wedding.

ABC spent least time on hard news, least time on the Top Twenty stories, from which, besides the royals, only the late Michael Jackson attracted its special attention.

CBS, under its new anchor Scott Pelley, spent most time on the economy and on the year's major foreign policy story, the war in Afghanistan. CBS led on the budget, on unemployment, on the stock market, on real estate, and on poverty.

NBC, a corporate sibling of the Weather Channel, covered the tsunami most heavily, and also tornado, hurricane and flood. In the past 24 years, only 2005 saw more natural disaster news, the year of Hurricane Katrina.

Bully for the Republicans! Previous years when only one party had a Presidential primary contest were sleepers—1995, 2003. This time the GOP came close to matching 2007’s early headlines.

The Most Newsworthy Woman of the Year was Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, shot in the head yet surviving; the Man was dictator Moammar Khadafy, not so much.

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Each day, Andrew Tyndall blogs the three newscasts. He has been monitoring
television news for 20 years. He claims to be the only person on the planet
who has personally watched every single weekday network nightly newscast
since the summer of 1987. Other people go on vacation: he records them all
and logs the news he missed into his database when he returns.